Hiring a COO: how to find the right second in command

Executive overview

Most CEO mistakes when hiring a COO come from hiring based on pedigree rather than fit. The COO's role is defined by the CEO's weaknesses — there is no universal job description.

The right hire depends on three things: the CEO's strengths and gaps, the company's culture, and its current growth stage. The same person who excels at one stage is often wrong for the next.

The COO is not a generic executive — they are the execution partner built around a specific CEO at a specific moment.

Defining the COO role

• Vision without execution is hallucination — the COO converts the CEO's vision into reality
• The COO acts as brakes to the CEO's gas, slowing impulsive decisions and adding rigour
• Harvard identified seven distinct COO types: executor, MVP, better half, partner, and others
• No single definition works — the role is shaped by what the CEO lacks, not a fixed job spec
• At 1-800-GOT-JUNK, one COO ran operations, sales, marketing, and PR outward-facing; the next is inward-facing on IT and finance — both right for their era

Skills every COO must have

• Strong on the people side: recruiting, interviewing, selection, and onboarding
• Able to facilitate healthy conflict and build consensus across leadership teams
• Skilled at growing and developing people so the company doesn't outpace its talent
• Understands strategy and business planning — not just execution
• Must have at least working knowledge of finance and P&L, even if finance doesn't report to them

Matching the COO to the CEO

• Start with a deep understanding of the CEO's strengths, weaknesses, and working style
• Do not copy another company's COO scorecard — build one specific to your CEO and business
• Avoid hiring a COO who wants to run an area the CEO loves; conflict is inevitable
• Culture fit matters as much as functional fit — a corporate COO can fail in an entrepreneurial company even with strong credentials
• The right COO for one season is often wrong for the next as the company scales

Common hiring mistakes

• Hiring based on pedigree rather than fit — the former president of Starbucks USA failed at 1-800-GOT-JUNK within 12 months
• Using someone else's scorecard instead of building one from the CEO's actual gaps
• Moving too fast to fill the seat after a long search; urgency drives mismatches
• Failing to account for company stage — a hire suited for $2M–$100M growth may be wrong at $100M–$500M

The first 90 days framework

• Month 1 — observe only: attend meetings, one-on-ones with each executive, read playbooks and manuals, take extensive notes; make no changes
• Month 2 — stress test: list all observed problems and opportunities, rank by impact, then challenge each hypothesis with further conversations before drawing conclusions
• Month 3 — easy wins: implement small, low-resource changes that yield quick results; this builds trust and earns the mandate for bigger projects in Q2
• Resist pressure from the CEO to move faster; a slower start compounds into faster execution later

Improving systems and processes

• Map every system from start to finish: what are the steps, who owns each, how long does each take
• Apply the stop, optimize, automate, outsource, delegate sequence — in that order
• Delete steps before trying to improve them; the stop-doing list is as important as the to-do list
• Automate only after optimising — automating a broken process locks in the waste
• Apply Parkinson's Law deliberately: name the expected time for each task to prevent expansion
• Train people on each step and give them the confidence to execute without escalating